Immediate thoughts
Jan. 1st, 2017 10:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cloudsinveniceBear in mind that I'm faintly hysterical, since the moment I got online to rant about the show I fell over this bizarre news story about the sinking of the Titanic, and I can no longer tell what's real and what is highly contrived clickbait-esque bollocks. In the context of seeing a new Sherlock episode, this is most unfortunate.
Okay. So I'm assuming the boys are going to fuck, based on the fact that I've been given to understand that this is what generally happens in fanfiction when a woman who has had the temerity to come between two men is fridged.
Right?
Stepping back a bit: I've never been in the Sherlock fandom, both because I'm bad at being active in multiple fandoms (or even one - I have a heap of posts and notifications on![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
vc_media that I need to devote some quality time to tomorrow) and because everything I hear suggests it is a writhing tentacular mass of wank. I just like hearing friends' reactions when there's a new episode, and talking it out a bit. So I haven't been following the clues that someone mentioned on Facebook - apparently there's been a blog, maybe made by the production team but maybe just a fan fake?
My overall impression of the show and the fandom - and please correct me if I'm wrong - is that, as often happens, the fandom generally thinks the writers do stuff to fuck with their reactions, and there's been years of debate as to whether they would ever actually put John and Sherlock together. I've heard of something called the Johnlock Conspiracy which is people who think they will and apparently the BNFs in that area of the fandom are very wanky indeed.
It's always tricky and weird when fans try to read into what showrunners and writers are up to. Believe me, I know. I come from Anne Rice fandom, baby. Sometimes it's a reach to imagine that the fandom segment of a show (in the LJ/Tumblr/A03 sense of fandom; OUR culture of fandom) will figure much in the creators' calculations, because we're a drop in the ocean compared to the overall audience size. But sometimes, to judge from what I've been told about Supernatural, they absolutely are and they can be merciless in skewering fandom. And when a canon is, in itself, professional fanfic, which Sherlock is, things get even weirder.
Two things bothered me about this episode.
One: Previously, I've always cared about their adventures. Here, I wasn't really invested in the story except for the little nugget (which grew into a time bomb) about John and his woman-on-the-bus. (John, you bastard. Really. Come on. You don't go through all that you've been through with Mary and then even entertain throwing it all away for a little bit of tantalisation, a little bit of mystery that says even you're an old dad now, you've still got it. That's so boring and sad, in both senses of the word.) It felt a little bit like they were going through the motions: here's some choppy editing techniques, a bit with Mrs. Hudson being dotty, a handful of twists, Sherlock being an insensitive twat, etc. etc., and it was all just there to set into motion the emotional story that they crammed into the last ten(?) minutes.
Two: How stupid are we supposed to find Mary and John? Firstly, that they even entertain both going when Sherlock calls is ludicrous. It's far too risky re: Rosie, and that's even implicit in the dialogue, and still, they both go. What if they'd both been hit? How does Mary go on a callout like this without a flak jacket? I realise we're not dealing with guns on the streets on the level of the USA, but still: Sherlock's cases are dangerous, Mary is a top agent whose past has just come back to bite her, and she takes a risk like that? It's absurd and I don't buy it, but not in that "it's all a big fakeout and she's really alive" way. I mean that I'm not convinced by the character the writers are trying to sell us. And why in hell's name does she jump in front of Sherlock like that at all? You're a mother, not his mother. Let Sherlock take responsibility for himself. Maybe he could even buy a flak jacket himself.
I don't follow behind the scenes stuff much, but I understand that Amanda Abingdon and Martin Freeman have split up. Maybe she wanted to leave the show, so Mary had to be written out permanently. That's understandable. But why not have John reject Mary after her past life came back to haunt them and she was prepared to leave instead of staying and them all solving the problem together? They're obviously okay with making John the bad guy, given the woman-on-the-bus thing, and I don't think it's impossible that he would leave after that happened. So make it joint custody, make it that we never actually see her. It's cobbled together, yeah, but it's mildly more believable than what we got. Or why not just keep Mary on the run (from AJ) indefinitely, not seen on screen but alluded to?
It just seems an awful shame, regardless of the writers' future intentions for the show, that they've gone down this route of "make characters act like total fools to shoehorn necessary events in"...
Okay. So I'm assuming the boys are going to fuck, based on the fact that I've been given to understand that this is what generally happens in fanfiction when a woman who has had the temerity to come between two men is fridged.
Right?
Stepping back a bit: I've never been in the Sherlock fandom, both because I'm bad at being active in multiple fandoms (or even one - I have a heap of posts and notifications on
vc_media that I need to devote some quality time to tomorrow) and because everything I hear suggests it is a writhing tentacular mass of wank. I just like hearing friends' reactions when there's a new episode, and talking it out a bit. So I haven't been following the clues that someone mentioned on Facebook - apparently there's been a blog, maybe made by the production team but maybe just a fan fake? My overall impression of the show and the fandom - and please correct me if I'm wrong - is that, as often happens, the fandom generally thinks the writers do stuff to fuck with their reactions, and there's been years of debate as to whether they would ever actually put John and Sherlock together. I've heard of something called the Johnlock Conspiracy which is people who think they will and apparently the BNFs in that area of the fandom are very wanky indeed.
It's always tricky and weird when fans try to read into what showrunners and writers are up to. Believe me, I know. I come from Anne Rice fandom, baby. Sometimes it's a reach to imagine that the fandom segment of a show (in the LJ/Tumblr/A03 sense of fandom; OUR culture of fandom) will figure much in the creators' calculations, because we're a drop in the ocean compared to the overall audience size. But sometimes, to judge from what I've been told about Supernatural, they absolutely are and they can be merciless in skewering fandom. And when a canon is, in itself, professional fanfic, which Sherlock is, things get even weirder.
Two things bothered me about this episode.
One: Previously, I've always cared about their adventures. Here, I wasn't really invested in the story except for the little nugget (which grew into a time bomb) about John and his woman-on-the-bus. (John, you bastard. Really. Come on. You don't go through all that you've been through with Mary and then even entertain throwing it all away for a little bit of tantalisation, a little bit of mystery that says even you're an old dad now, you've still got it. That's so boring and sad, in both senses of the word.) It felt a little bit like they were going through the motions: here's some choppy editing techniques, a bit with Mrs. Hudson being dotty, a handful of twists, Sherlock being an insensitive twat, etc. etc., and it was all just there to set into motion the emotional story that they crammed into the last ten(?) minutes.
Two: How stupid are we supposed to find Mary and John? Firstly, that they even entertain both going when Sherlock calls is ludicrous. It's far too risky re: Rosie, and that's even implicit in the dialogue, and still, they both go. What if they'd both been hit? How does Mary go on a callout like this without a flak jacket? I realise we're not dealing with guns on the streets on the level of the USA, but still: Sherlock's cases are dangerous, Mary is a top agent whose past has just come back to bite her, and she takes a risk like that? It's absurd and I don't buy it, but not in that "it's all a big fakeout and she's really alive" way. I mean that I'm not convinced by the character the writers are trying to sell us. And why in hell's name does she jump in front of Sherlock like that at all? You're a mother, not his mother. Let Sherlock take responsibility for himself. Maybe he could even buy a flak jacket himself.
I don't follow behind the scenes stuff much, but I understand that Amanda Abingdon and Martin Freeman have split up. Maybe she wanted to leave the show, so Mary had to be written out permanently. That's understandable. But why not have John reject Mary after her past life came back to haunt them and she was prepared to leave instead of staying and them all solving the problem together? They're obviously okay with making John the bad guy, given the woman-on-the-bus thing, and I don't think it's impossible that he would leave after that happened. So make it joint custody, make it that we never actually see her. It's cobbled together, yeah, but it's mildly more believable than what we got. Or why not just keep Mary on the run (from AJ) indefinitely, not seen on screen but alluded to?
It just seems an awful shame, regardless of the writers' future intentions for the show, that they've gone down this route of "make characters act like total fools to shoehorn necessary events in"...
no subject
Date: 2017-01-01 11:11 pm (UTC)Unless the show is going to definitely end for ever then I very much doubt they will even be *allowed* by TPTB to put Sherlock and John together. This is based on various problems there have been with getting various things done on Doctor Who. Sherlock sells massively all around the world so the BBC are likely to be pretty conservative about it.
no subject
Date: 2017-01-04 12:47 am (UTC)And yeah, I just don't see them risking their overseas sales, but I can imagine that this will be the kind of thing that fandom finds really frustrating because this ep will be seen as telegraphing a future for John and Sherlock as more than friends and colleagues...
no subject
Date: 2017-01-02 02:36 am (UTC)I'm on the fringes of the Sherlock fandom...or I was a while back; I never bothered trying to be active because I could sense epic wank reminiscent of LotR and had no wish to dip so much as a toe; not to mention the fact that I am not good at juggling fandoms as evidenced by being in pretty much one in all thhe years I have been online. I see problems in the writing and I am not a hige Moffat fan after hat happened with Torchwood, but I have trouble beleiving that the BBC would just cave to the specifics of the relatively smaller block of fandom (meaning Johnlock).
I saw the same signs they all wank so hard bout and yeah, I would not have been averse to the pairing, but OTOH I can also see it as a very close friendship or a close friendship wherein one of the pair may have stronger sexual attraction to the other, some of which is born of the admiration in place. As far as the fanfic, well it's a great place to investigate the many aspects that any one person might find attractive (perhaps it's easier to be complacent when there is firm canonical basis for one's own ship, even though canon completely ignored it for many years...it was still there, and has finally been resurrected).
I've read a bit in the Sherlock fandom and there is a pretty decent amount of well-written genfic tying in to the cases on the show and a memorable LeStrade vs. Mycroft regarding how a case (made up by the author) might be handled - I recall it hade beautifully deft conversation. A lot of the Johnlock feels overwrought to me, but that is likely just because I happened to choose fic where the writers need to work their own view of things out of their systems before tackling anything further. I have yet to find my own particular fancy underscored anywhere, but then, I haven't looked that hard and fell out of the abit of looking in the exceedingly long interval (more like
waiting for a book than the next season of a series) since the last season. It wasn't hard to drift away because the fandom infighting was heating up and I have no taste for it at all. I'll watch this evening but it does not sound like I will be moved to dip back into the fandom much.
I didn't know Amanda & Martin had split...I'm sorry to hear it; I like her as Mary on the show.
There are some shows that I watch with varying levels of interest and I like some of the associated blogs (Hannibal, Penny Dreadful, Jessica Jones and a ne one I just began called Glitch which is an Australian offering that I like much better than the American version (Returned) -- only watched half of one season of that one so far.) As much as I like them,, noneof the, entice me toward becoming fandom-active for whatever reason, though I do like seeing the various Tumblr posts on them. Not exactly 'active', is it? :)
no subject
Date: 2017-01-04 12:51 am (UTC)It reminds me of Hannibal and Will in that, for every version of Sherlock Holmes I've ever seen, I could be persuaded that they're just friends, that at least one of them has feelings for the other, that they're sexually involved, or that it has varied over time. Which is nice because it makes me less invested in needing any one outcome to win on-screen...
And yeah, this show feels much more like following a book series. I was quite surprised when someone noted just how long it has been since season 3! Of course, as we know from the VC, that can be a problem in itself, because long lag times between instalments just means that people's positions become more entrenched (Harry Potter's three-year summer must be the ultimate example of this) and fic has been written and pairings created which inevitably get Jossed by whatever canon comes next...
no subject
Date: 2017-01-02 05:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-04 12:53 am (UTC)